Stop Eating Shit

January 31, 2016April 19, 2016

Berry Berry Nice Chia Jam

I know a very, very crass joke about jam and jelly. Like, crass even by my filthy mouthed standards and funnily enough it was one of the charming little things that cemented my husbands love for me in our early courtship. Yep, a romance born from disgracefully grubby, un-PC humour, it’s a true love story alright.

But back to the jam…

Jam is one of those things that seem so great at face value; fruit puree that can be spread on toast (don’t even get me started on the simple joy of peanut butter and jam), licked off a spoon, dolloped on pancakes, or… no, I won’t go there.

Suffice to say, jam, in principle, has great potential. But the grim reality is that it tends to be a fruit-like concoction made largely from sugar, with barely a trace of the actual produce it purports to be made from.

So here’s a turn up for the books, jam that’s actually made from, and tastes like, fruit. Say whaaaaaa? It uses minimal additional sweetener so you can enjoy the true berry flavour, and, being thickened with chia seeds, it has the added benefit of omega-3, fibre, calcium and trace minerals those funny gelatinous little guys are packed with.

Get this stuff

300 grams raspberries, blackberries or a mixture of the two. I use frozen because, economics. A kilo bag of frozen berries will set you back less than a tenner and given that they’re just going to be mashed up into a pulp the frozen guys are absolutely perfect for the job. But if you’re feeling blinging and you want to use fresh then hey, fill yer boots.

Do this with it

Seriously, I feel like I’m taking the piss calling this a recipe but, here goes…

If you’re using frozen berries defrost them in the microwave, or au natural at room temp, then just throw everything in a bowl and mash it up with the back of a fork until you have a pretty pulpy puree type thing going on. Now walk away. Yep, that’s it. Love it and leave it, neglect it, ignore it, that jam is actually just going to make itself. Come back a few hours later and you’ll find your gorgeous, glossy mixture that the chia seeds will have absorbed the fruit juice and turned gelatinous to create a delicious batch of jam made from actual, real life fruit.

This is basically a product of wilful neglect so it’s an ideal one to throw together before you go to bed so you can wake up to freshly made jam to spread, dollop, lick and enjoy to your heart’s content.